


Till Death Do Us Apart

by wonker8



Series: Wedding Rings [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: "Seduce the rich guy", Afghanistan, Clint Barton is William Brandt, I suppose it's a bit funny, Ice Cream, M/M, Nick Fury is a sneak, Phil Coulson is forever a fanboy, Podfic Available, Ten Rings, Wedding Rings, au-ish, insecure!Will, medical issues that I probably should have done more research on, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonker8/pseuds/wonker8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Seduce the rich guy," Ethan said.<br/>"It'll be fun!" Benji said.<br/>"I'll teach you," Jane said. </p><p>"What do you mean you're lost in Afghanistan?!" SHIELD demanded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a short one-shot that quickly developed into over 40 pages in Microsoft Word. Timeline-wise, this starts after Ghost Protocol and before Ironman, it then ghosts along Ironman and hints at the future without actually going there.

“No, no, no, no, no! This has got to be a bad joke!” William Brandt exclaimed as he stared at his teammates in pure horror. “You guys better be kidding me!”

“Uh… Nope. We’re pretty sure we’re serious,” Benji said as he grinned at the ex-Analyst.

“You said you wanted to,” Jane reminded him.

“Come on, Brandt,” Ethan said with a gentle smile. “You’re the only one who can do this.”

“Nuh-uh!” Will protested. “Jane can so easily take care of this! She’s the Queen of Seducing! No offense, Jane.”

“None taken,” she said.

“The target’s too used to seduction techniques,” Ethan quickly shut down. “He’ll just sleep with her and then dump her. We need someone in there for a good amount of time to build trust and to get all the necessary information. For something like that, one night lay isn’t going to cut it.”

“Then why doesn’t Benji just hack in there?” Will stopped when he realized how ridiculous that sounded. From the looks of disbelief that his teammates were giving him, he figured they realized how stupid it sounded as well. “Okay, that was a stupid question. Of course Benji can’t hack in there. And I’m also going to guess that despite not being able to hack in there, Benji’s still going to be stuck in the computer room with his technology?”

“Yup! And seeing that I’m stuck as the techie, I don’t get to… How did you put it? Ah, ‘seduce the rich guy.’” Benji smirked, looking much too smug for Will’s taste. Will gritted his teeth.

“So why can’t Jane not seduce-seduce him, and instead work as his PA?” Will asked. “Build up the trust and such like?”

“Too likely that he’ll sleep with me and get me fired first,” Jane pointed out. “Ms. Potts is too good at picking up those kinds of vibes from other women or from the target. Not to mention I’m pretty sure she won’t let me anywhere near any important files if she thinks I’m going to get fired soon.”

“But you think she won’t be able to pick up a ‘vibe’ from a man?” Will demanded.

“No other men have tried,” Benji offered. “At least, according to the intel that we got. Everyone always sends in women for seducing the target because… Well, it’s Tony Stark. So we’re being creative.”

Will looked thoughtful at this. “But if this intel is correct,” he said, “why can’t Ethan do this? He’s attractive. And he’s much more experienced in seducing people.”

“Because you have eidetic memory,” Ethan countered. “If we can’t get hard copy of who Stark Industry is selling their weapons to, then at least you’ll have it all in your head. All we have to do is shut down the terrorist organization ourselves afterwards.”

“And what makes you think that he’ll even spare a glance towards my direction?” Will pointed out.

“Have you looked at yourself? You’re practically a cute little puppy, begging for attention! Not to mention you have that angsty agent look going for you as well. Who doesn’t want to tear the suit off of you and ravish you?” Jane said, her lips curling into a smile at the growing horrified look on Will’s face. “Besides, the target’s known for having lots of sex. It’s just so happens that he prefers women, but I’m sure you can convince him otherwise. He’ll want to bone you sooner or later. I’ll teach you a few tips.”

“But that makes no sense. I just need to get close to him emotionally. Why do I have to seduce him?” Will asked.

“Distraction using sex,” Benji explained.

“Okay… but there’s still a big piece of the puzzle missing,” Will reminded them. “How am I going to get close to Tony Stark?”

“That’s the fun part!” Benji said excitedly. “We’re going to stage a kidnapping.”

Will stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

“We’ll kidnap him,” Ethan said. “You break him out. He’ll be so thankful that he’ll want you. Maybe keep you. All else fails, you can convince Ms. Potts to hire you as his bodyguard. After all that you do for him, he’ll be happy to keep you with him at all times.”

“And if you really want, you can wait to seduce him then,” Jane added.

“What about comms and other methods of communication? Wouldn’t those be compromised because of Stark technology? They’ll be able to tell that I’m an agent from a mile away.”

“We have that covered!” Benji exclaimed, looking much too gleeful by this.

Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring box. Will blinked. _Don’t tell me…?!_ Ethan opened the ring box and offered Will the wedding band that was inside of it.

“What…?” Will asked.

“This ring,” Ethan said as he pulled the ring out and helped slip it on Will’s ring finger, “is the pride and joy of Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division’s R&D project. It shouldn’t tick off any alarms, because it has absolutely no technological component. But because it’s made from a special metal alloy that our satellites will always track, we’ll be able to find you, no matter where you are. This is, of course, on the assumption that you don’t go rolling around in similar metal alloy, which would confuse the satellite. As for communicating, we can set up meeting times later so that we can exchange information.”

Will nodded slowly. He looked at the ring on his finger, which looked like it was a pure gold ring. He was going to have to get a chain later, because a ring on his finger was going to get in the way. Rings always got in the way. Speaking of which, if he had a wedding band, didn’t that mean that he would have to pretend to be married? But he was going to seduce the target despite that? Damn, he hated being a douchebag.

“What’s my background story? I can’t just show up randomly and save his life. I have to have a reason. Plus, wedding ring. Am I married to someone else but still going to sleep with Stark? Am I going to be using this to propose to Stark? On top of that, wouldn’t he run a background check on whatever new identity that we come up for me? And if there’s even an inkling of a mistake, they’ll know something’s up.”

“Oh, we’re not coming up with a new one,” Benji said. “Too risky.”

“But…?” Will frowned, his brows furrowing in deep thought. Then realization hit him and his mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Hell no! No! There’s a reason why I took on the name William Brandt after I joined IMF. I’m not going to return to being Clint Barton!”

“Will,” Ethan said. He was using his “I’m-the-leader-and-I-say-this-is-the-only-way-we-can-do-this-mission-so-go-with-it” voice, which meant that he wasn’t going to budge and that Will was really screwed. “You have no choice.”  
*  
After IMF had been shut down by the President through the Ghost Protocol, rebuilding it back up turned out to be more taxing then anyone had expected. The President insisted that IMF no longer be so hush-hush, and that it report under a High Council to make sure that the agency didn’t undertake a mission that could potentially cause another World War. This meant that the new director of IMF had to be someone who not only could do the job, but also could stand up to the Council to make the right call, no matter the consequences.

Colonel Nicholas Joseph Fury was the perfect man for the job.

He stormed into the President’s office and took the job without a word. He then reformed IMF. To the public, they were Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. Inside the agency, they still joked that they were the Impossible Mission Force, because everything that they undertook was pretty much still impossible (or close enough to it that it didn’t matter).

This change was followed by a small witch-hunt where Nick Fury got rid of any moles or corrupted agents, to ensure that the agency would be clean and pristine. Quickly after, he began to recruit new members. Phil Coulson and Maria Hill were two of the best that joined after IMF’s change. Brandt had chosen to stay and helped Fury with his job, because well… Chief Analyst.

William Brandt was one of the most composed suits around, which made him the perfect candidate to speak to the Council or take care of dealings with the Presidents or any other high-ranking politician. He also had the mission reports from IMF days memorized in his mind that he could offer to Fury. On top of that, he was a patient teacher and could train new recruits for analyst or other suit positions quite easily.

For a while, Fury considered keeping Brandt as the Chief Analyst and forbid him from returning to the field. But Brandt always reminded everyone of his abilities through action rather than words. This was especially so in the case of one Black Widow, who was a well-known assassin sent in to kill Fury. Instead of killing her like ordered, Brandt made a different call, and now Natasha Romanoff was one of the best agents Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division had to offer.

All the IMF agents were given a choice to commit to the new agency or to leave, disavowed. Ethan, Benji, Jane, and Luther all chose to stay. They also offered their services for the sake of the new agency. Usually, they went on missions and achieved the objective flawlessly. But few times, they helped come up with policies and train new recruits.

It was the reason why Fury trusted them (more specifically Brandt) with this mission.  
*  
“Wow… you’re… You’re not wearing a suit,” Benji commented when Clint walked out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

Clint grinned. “Like what you see, lab geek?”

“Lab…?” Ethan began, sounding actually horrified for once. “What… Will, you can’t just… Why aren’t you dressed? We leave in five minutes!”

“Chill out, boss man! You’re much too tense about this,” Clint teased. “I’ll be dressed and ready to go in no time.”

“Guys, what are you doing? We should be getting ready to go. And… Will, are you seriously not even dressed? What’s going on?” Jane asked as she peeked into the room.

“Lay off, man-legs! I’ll get fucking dressed. Jesus! Every single one of you!” Clint muttered with a roll of his eyes as he stormed off.

The others glanced at one another, suddenly unsure of the future of the mission. Clint Barton was surprisingly different from William Brandt. They could see why Will had been so reluctant about this.  
*  
The kidnapping, for the most part, went well, thank you for asking. The mission, for the most part, went well as well and Tony Stark was convinced that he had been kidnapped for the sake of quick bucks.

Clint Barton with his bow and arrows (“Seriously? That’s what you want to fight with?!” Benji exclaimed when he saw Will’s choice of weapon. “Shut up,” Will growled back, “This’ll make it hard to track my past as a secret agent.”) appeared and rescued the billionaire. There was an epic battle between Clint and Ethan (It wasn’t all staged. It was an actual hand-to-hand combat. Clint’s got bruises to prove it), where Ethan’s mask ripped off and Tony Stark got a look at Ethan’s face.

Other than that one little mishap, everything else went well.

Tony Stark truly believed that Clint Barton was a good guy, who (because of his love for bow and arrows and his crude mannerism) had a hard time fitting in. He believed Clint when Clint said that he was a runaway circus performer who just wanted to do good in the world (because, well, that was the truth). He also believed Clint when he said he was a fan of Stark’s weapons and proudly shared with him the different trick arrow tips that he carried with him (He actually designed and created most of them himself when he had been younger and still interested in archery). And when Clint spotted Stark get taken, he had done what any bow-slinging circus runaways would do: Rescue him.

Stark was impressed. But more importantly, Clint had him exactly where he wanted him.  
*  
“Pepper!” Stark exclaimed when they returned from the kidnapping incident. “Meet Clint Barton. Clint, that’s Pepper. Get along now, because I’m adopting him into the family.”

“You’re what?!” demanded two different people in the room. Pepper’s recovery was much more attractive. She quickly mouthed, “No offense,” to Clint and turned to face Stark with a furious expression. “You can’t just decide things like that by yourself! Where did you pick him up? I’m going to make sure that he gets home and-”

“I don’t exactly have a home,” Clint cut her short. He had to stay here. That was the mission. And no pretty woman was going to make him walk away from this. He was throwing his dignity away to seduce a rich man, and damn him, if this mission was anything but a success. “I just need a night to stay, got it? Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Pepper shot angry glares at Stark, who just beamed and began to introduce Clint to the rest of the ‘family’ (otherwise known as robots). Clint was pretty sure that ‘a night stay’ was soon going to last forever.  
*  
“Did your house just… talk to me?”

“That’s just JARVIS. You’ll get used to him watching everything you do.”

Will wondered if that was Tony’s way of being Big Brother. Clint, however, raised an eyebrow at Tony with an amused grin. “Figures you’ll be a kinky bastard.”  
*  
When Will reclaimed his name as Clint Barton, he also reclaimed his past swagger and grins. After all, Clint Barton was a man untouched by the sins of William Brandt or the training of an agent. Clint Barton only had his skills as a circus performer who once upon a time shot arrows and was known as the Greatest Marksman in the World.

Clint Barton was a man of sarcasm and snark. He was rude, crass, and didn’t give a rat’s ass about how he came across to people. He looked uncomfortable in a suit, couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes, and most definitely couldn’t be quiet when required. He couldn’t lie worth shit, which made him an honest idiot who wouldn’t last a minute under any torture. But that didn’t matter because Clint’s will was stronger than his want to tell the truth, and if he needed to keep his mouth shut under torture, he could.

He loved life and risk, and his personal philosophy was ‘if there’s no risk, life isn’t worth living.’ He threw himself in danger for the hell of it and rode through the thrill because it made him feel alive. And if he didn’t make it through at the end, then who cared? It wasn’t like there was anyone waiting for him somewhere.

At least not because they loved him.

In other words, Clint Barton and William Brandt were two completely different people with different experiences. Getting into character had been hard, but once Will was Clint Barton again, he was Clint Barton. He was all smile, confidence, and arrogance rolled into one. Getting back to Will, however, was a struggle.

Will just hoped that this mission went smoothly and that he didn’t get stuck being Barton too long.  
*  
“You have any job, Legolas?” Stark asked that night as he gave Clint a tour around the Tower.

Clint snorted. “If I had a job, would I have been hanging out like some hobo in front of the shop where you got kidnapped?”

Stark grinned at that. “Thought so,” he said. “Well, good. Because if you had a job, I would have told you to quit.”

“And why would you do that?” Clint asked, his eyebrow raising up to his hairline.

“Because I’m officially hiring you as my personal bodyguard.”  
*  
Pepper was not happy with this new arrangement. “What about Happy?” she demanded. “He’s working his hardest to make sure you stay safe, Tony. Are you going to fire him?”

“Nothing like that,” Stark explained. “I’m just hiring Clint as my other bodyguard. That way, if Happy wants to take a break, he can. Clint’ll just be with me all the other times, you know?”

“Tony, I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Pepper said.

“Then do a background check on him or something,” Stark said with the wave of his hand. “Look, Pepper. It’s going to be fine. I have a good feeling about Barton. And if you really want, Happy can follow me to all the important SI meetings and sales.”

Pepper frowned at him but didn’t verbally disagree. If Clint Barton was a danger, then by god, she was going to find out.  
*  
“Hey, there any place I can have a shower?” Clint asked at the end of their tour.

“Well, since I haven’t prepared you a suite yet, you can use mine,” Stark told him. He led Clint towards the penthouse and pointed at the bathroom. “There you go.”

Time for Jane’s Seduction Technique Number 12. Clint smirked at Stark as he slowly pulled up his shirt, revealing his skin inch by inch. He turned around, giving Stark full view of his backside (“Why my back? I have too many scars. What if he gets scared seeing them?” Will asked with wide eyes. “Scars are hot. Besides, you have a sweet ass. It’ll be a shame not to show it off!” Jane said with a bright smile).

He heard the faint sound of the door opening and Pepper’s words of, “Tony, I have the-” Then she stopped talking and something fell to the ground, and the archer knew without a doubt that he had everyone’s attention.

Clint pulled the shirt off completely, revealing all the scars of his past. He turned slightly to give the other two in the room a good view of his well-toned chest and abs. He began slowly unbuttoning his jeans and pulling down the zipper, throwing his head back slightly. Pink tongue swept out across his lips, and he slowly rolled his hips while pulling down his pants.

A quick glance over informed him that Stark was staring unabashedly at him, his eyes darkened as he gulped slowly. As for Pepper, she was distractedly picking up the dropped files, her eyes never leaving the scars and…

The ring around his neck. Fuck. Clint had almost forgotten about the wedding band. To cover up the any fear from the mistake, he threw them both a cocky grin before stepping out of his jeans and walking into the bathroom. He made sure to move his ass slowly, just as Jane had taught him. Gods, this was embarrassing.

Pepper waited until the bathroom door was closed before collecting all of the dropped files and handing it over to Stark. Instead of taking it, Stark stared at the closed bathroom door, a look on his face that she knew too well.

“No, Tony,” she said firmly. “You can’t have him. He’s married. Didn’t you see his wedding band?”

“Is that for real? I mean, does any of the file say that he was married?”

Pepper bit her lips. “Well, that’s the strangest thing. The last six years of his life is missing. Almost like he dropped off the face of the earth. It’s possible that he got married within that timeframe and changed his name or something, but I can’t say it for sure. Tony, I don’t like this. He’s dangerous. Did you see those scars?”

“It’s probably from when he was with the circus,” Tony said distractedly. He finally took the files from Pepper and began to flip through them. “If he changed his name back to Barton, then that means the marriage didn’t last… Tell me more. Where was he born? Who are his parents? Can you find out what he did in the last six years? Why was he at the circus? When did he leave? Did he ever do anything else? What are his sizes? What about his favorite color?”

“His favorite…? Tony, how the hell would I know that?” Pepper asked, looking incredulously at the billionaire. “Why do you even need to know that?”

Stark whined at that, causing Pepper to rub her temples. “Tony, I’m serious,” she said. “No fucking Barton.”

She never said anything about Barton fucking Stark.  
*  
To make the plan ‘Barton fuck Stark’ come to fruition, Tony knew he had to play his cards right. After all, he just hired Clint as his bodyguard. And although Clint showed sure signs that he wouldn’t mind sex, Tony wasn’t sure that was all he wanted. Tony was good at sex with no strings attached. He was fine with fuck-and-dash.

But with Clint, things were different.

Tony didn’t want to just fuck him senseless (or be fucked as the case may turn out to be) and leave him. He couldn’t do that. Clint had saved his life, and although “Thank-God-we’re-alive” sex sounded good, Tony didn’t want anything awkward between them. It would be like having sex with Pepper or Rhodey. Their relationship would be screwed up. Things would get awkward and sex wasn’t worth ruining their friendship.

Not to mention the wedding band that Clint wore around his neck. Who did Clint marry? Did he marry? And if he did, then did it have anything to do with the six years that was missing from Clint’s files? If Clint changed his last name for his spouse, then did that mean Clint married another man? Why did Clint never make any attempt to call his spouse? Was his spouse dead? Did that mean that Tony had a chance? Or maybe it didn’t, because maybe Clint was actually straight and Tony was reading all the signs wrong.

Whatever it was, Tony Stark figured that he was going to cultivate their friendship first.  
*  
Happy did not look very pleased at the sight of Clint. Indeed, there was a firm line of crease on his forehead from giving Clint what the archer assumed was supposed to be an intimidating look. But to someone who had grown up at a circus with clowns running around, it was more ridiculous than anything. How did Tony Stark survive for so long with someone like Happy watching over him?

“Well,” Happy said finally. “You look the part.”

It was the closest to acceptance Clint was going to get at this moment in time. Will figured it was good enough.  
*  
Clint followed Tony around everywhere except for one. Stark Industry. He was forbidden from ever entering the building or going anywhere near any business. It made completing the mission a little complicated. But Ethan had warned him about this. So Will just told himself to be patient and played along with Tony Stark’s antics.  
*  
“Ah, so you must be the Clint Barton that Tony spoke a lot about,” greeted an older gentleman.

Clint gave him a cocky grin. “And you must be the Ol’ man Obie Stark goes on about. He made you sound younger.”

Obadiah Stane chuckled and opened up his arms as if to say, ‘What can I do?’ Clint thought that the man was chill, just as Tony had described him. But there was something about the way the man was staring at him, almost as if he recognized Clint from somewhere… It made Will anxious because neither Clint Barton nor William Brandt had a recollection of meeting Stane. But if Stane recognized him, did that mean that the old man knew him from his circus days?

Did rich people like Obadiah Stane and Tony Stark go watch circus performances?

“Darn, you guys already introduced each other!” Tony whined when he walked into the room. “I was looking forward to doing that!”

Stane just rolled his eyes and exchanged a friendly grin with Clint. “No harm, no foul,” Stand told his charge. “Maybe next time when you bring another stray home.”

It was said with light charm and all good humor, but Will couldn’t help but to find small underlying tones of discomfort. Strange. Why was Stane unhappy with Clint being here despite the friendly exterior?

“Oh, by the way, Obie, I decided to tunnel some of the weaponry funding away to help me pay for a new weapon idea of mine.”

“Is that so?” Stane asked looking pleased but a little confused. “Why exactly is that a problem? You usually just create weapons without asking me.”

“Right, but I just wanted you to know this in case people started asking.”

“… What are you creating, Tony?”

“Arrows!” Tony shouted, punching the air. “I’m going to make new trick arrows for Clint!”

There was a stunned pause before Clint’s brain finally started working again. “What the hell?! I told you that no one touches my arrows! You’re not creating new arrows for me! Only I create my own arrows!”

“… Arrows?” Stane asked softly. He looked at Tony and then at Clint. “If it’s for Clint here, then why not use your own allowance?”

“Because I figured we can sell them, too!”

“Tony,” Stane growled. “No one in their right mind uses bow and arrows for weapons. It’s going to flop and there will be no business in it. You’ll be wasting resources in creating bunch of arrows that no one will use!”

“So?” The billionaire challenged.

Will understood what was going on. Tony wanted to use the Stark Industry to mass create trick arrows so that Clint Barton could use them. It was a waste of resources and funds, especially since Will wasn’t planning on being Clint Barton for long. He had to stop this.

“Tony,” Clint said. “Don’t be stupid. Keep creating your weapons. And leave the arrows to me.”

The billionaire pouted and complained, but Clint did not budge. Will did not miss the way Stane’s anger did not leave his body. Will did not miss the dark and rather spiteful look in the old man’s eyes. Interesting. There was a story here that wasn’t being said. Obadiah Stane was hiding a secret.  
*  
Tony walked down into the kitchen in the morning, yawning loudly. “Hey JARVIS, what do we have for…” His words trialed off when he realized that there was someone else in the kitchen. Normally, he wouldn’t have cared so much, except the sight in front of him left him not only speechless but also a little light-headed.

Clint Barton was whistling a happy tune as he cooked bacon on the frying pan. If that had been all, then Tony would have been able to just casually joke around with his bodyguard and fool around. But Clint was wearing nothing but shorts and a towel wrapped around his neck. It was as if he walked out of a workout magazine, especially the way he just made all those scars on his body just _work_. And don’t get Tony started on all those muscles on Clint’s arms, torso and…

Tony gulped loudly, not realizing that this was just Jane’s Seduction Technique Number 29. The archer turned with a big grin.

“Yo!” he said, “Hope you like bacon.”

The billionaire just nodded mutely and sat down on the counter, where a breakfast meal had been set up. Was it bad that he sort of wished that this would last forever?  
*  
“Rhodey, you’re going to love him!” Tony ranted as he skipped happily ahead of his best friend. “He’s funny, brilliant, and athletic!”

“Right, right,” Rhodey groaned. “Look Tony, I just got back. Can this wait?”

“What?!” Tony exclaimed. He turned to glare at Rohdey with a look of disbelief. “I’m telling you that I think I finally found the one and you’re telling me to wait?!”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m sure he’s wonderful and all that. But I need some sleep first. We can talk later, okay? I can see him later.”

“But he’s waiting for you in the room!” Tony whined. “Please? Just say hello?”

“Fine, fine,” his best friend sighed. “I’m just saying hello and-”

The doors opened and Rhodey was greeted with one Clint Barton, who was sitting on the couch. He was tossing a small racquet ball up in the air, bouncing it against something, which returned it to his hands. All of this would have been fine if not for the fact that he was completely shirtless and Rhodey could see the muscles stretch and pull as Barton continued to toss the ball.

There was no doubt in Rhodey’s mind why Tony Stark liked this guy. Great. Just great.  
*  
“Wait, wait, wait,” Tony said as he stared at Clint as if he was an alien from out of space. “Are you fucking serious? You’ve never had mint chocolate chip?!”

Clint shrugged. “Never really had a need to.”

The billionaire signaled at Happy to change their destination, and from listening in, Happy knew exactly where to go. Few minutes later, the sports car pulled to a stop in front of an ice cream store.

“We’re going to buy every single flavor in this shop,” Tony declared with a winning smile. “And you’re going to eat every single one of them until you find your favorite flavor.”

William Brandt thought it was unnecessary and kind of gross. Clint Barton, however, was thrilled and ready to comply. “Awesome! I’ve never had that much ice cream before!”

 _Damned mission,_ Will cursed mentally. _This isn’t even what I signed up for! Well, I suppose Jane’s Seduction Technique Number 32 will actually come in handy now._  
*  
There were two girls hanging off of Tony’s arms. The billionaire looked too snug for Will’s liking.

“I’m going to bed,” he declared loudly to Pepper and Clint.

The archer rolled his eyes and Pepper just rubbed her temples. And things would have ended there if not for Tony who motioned for Clint to follow him.

“You’re my bodyguard,” the billionaire reasoned. “You have to be by my side _at all times_. Just in case, you know?” Will thought the stress on the words ‘at all times’ were unnecessary, especially since it wasn’t like he was allowed anywhere near the Stark Industry. “So come along to my bed chamber.”

Wait what?

 _This has got to be a sick joke,_ Will thought. Clint just laughed and shook his head. “You’re one sick bastard,” he said, agreeing with Will on some level for once. “I ain’t going to perv on you while you fuck two girls.”

“Too bad,” Tony said with a wave of his hand. “You signed up for this job. Now do it.”

Clint stared at the two girls then at Tony. With a shrug, he said, “Whatever you say, Boss,” and followed, the traitor.

 _How’s this even my life?_ Will lamented mentally.  
*  
The gunshot rang through the alley, and all Tony could do was stare blankly.

“… Clint?” he whispered hoarsely.

The said archer tried to sit up but didn’t make it far. Instead he just waved his hand at Tony, trying to get the billionaire to help him sit up. “I’m fine, rich boy,” he promised, “Just help me up.”

But Tony was frozen to the spot. His eyes were wide and face much too pale. His whole body shook, and not the small tremors of laughter, but full out shakes of fear. Sighing softly, Clint forced himself off of the ground, holding the bullet wound gingerly in his hand.

“I’m fine, Tony,” he repeated as he pulled Tony close to him. He was leaning heavily on the other man, but Tony didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m fine.”

He repeated the two words until Tony calmed down enough to call Pepper. She called an ambulance, and by the time they got there, Clint had lost a good chunk of blood, and dots were clouding his vision. All in all, Will thought it was the least amount of damage he had ever received in his post-IMF missions.  
*  
Once Clint was out of surgery, he found himself on a lone hospital bed with a worried Tony Stark by his side. And for the following week, the billionaire refused to leave Clint’s side. Every single Stark Industry business had to be rerouted to the hospital, and since Clint couldn’t be at a meeting, Tony took to holding the top important meetings either out in the hospital hallway or in the doctors' private quarters.

It was amusing as hell to watch, but Clint’s sharp eyes didn’t miss the grumblings and annoyances on everyone else’s faces. If Tony didn’t control the world through his weaponization, Will realized with a start, then he probably wouldn’t get very far in life. This realization made him hesitate. He knew he should be going ahead with the mission, but going through with it had the potential possibility of leaving Tony Stark broke.

And so a good portion of the year passed without any progress on ‘Barton fuck Stark’ plan or ‘Seduce Tony Stark’ mission.  



	2. Chapter 2

There were few ways Will escaped Tony long enough to see his teammates. One of which was a visit to the bar. While Tony was busy either hustling pool or getting drunk, Will would slide over and find himself in a secluded booth where one of his teammates would join him. They would then quietly discuss any progress or lack thereof and then discuss the potential plans for the future. Like now, for instance.

Currently, William Brandt had his head in his hands, bemoaning the fate of the mission in front of Ethan Hunt.

“Nothing is working,” Will whined. “It doesn’t matter what I do. I’ve tried walking around without my shirt on, I’ve done my best to flex my muscles in front of him, and I even ate ice cream! Ice cream! Do you know how much calories are in an ice cream? And instead of sexing it up with me, he’s been banging more random chicks than I can count. That man has some insane stamina, just saying. And you know what’s worse? He forces me to stay in the room with him ‘just in case.’ What the fuck does he even think is going to happen? Argh! I hate this mission. I hate Tony Stark. And I absolutely hate seducing rich guys! I’ve sacrificed so much for this mission, and nothing’s happening! Nothing’s working! It’s been almost a year already, and we have nothing. We should just give up on this mission.”

Ethan reached over and took one of Will’s hands. “You’re thinking too much,” he said gently as he rubbed small circles on Clint’s hand. “I told you that this mission would take a long time. You can’t just seduce him; you also have to build trust. And once you do, you just walk out of there with the needed files.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Will grumbled. He looked up from his misery and stared into Ethan’s eyes. He sighed softly. Perhaps he was thinking too much about the mission. He tried changing the topic. “How’s everyone doing?”

“Ah, you know,” Ethan said, relaxing now that they weren’t talking about work anymore. “Fury’s annoyed that he actually has to take care of publicity now. Jane’s training Hill. They’re getting along pretty well, actually. Benji’s been trying to hack into Stark Industry for a while. He’s not going anywhere, though; so don’t put all your eggs on that basket. Let’s see, Natasha’s currently on a long-term mission, and it seems to be falling into place. She should be back in a few months. Oh, Phil’s stuck with training the new recruits. It’s kind of amusing to watch, because he somehow manages to mention you in every single lesson. Oh, and he actually complains about work from time to time. I think we’re rubbing off on him.”

Will smiled. “The horrors of bad influence, huh?”

They were laughing gently, sharing the moment of relaxation, when Tony Stark barged into the booth, a bottle of brandy in one hand. “You,” Tony said drunkenly. He shoved his forefinger near Ethan’s face, a deep scowl on the billionaire’s face. “Who the hell are you?”

“Just an interested party,” Ethan said, holding his hands up in a non-threatening manner. He winked at Will and put down some money on the booth. “Nothing to worry about.”

Then Ethan left, leaving Will all alone with Tony Stark. Will tried to smile confidently and to motion for Tony to sit. Tony didn’t sit down. Instead, he reached over and grabbed Will’s hand, clutching tightly almost so much that it hurt. He pulled Will up and out of the booth with such ease that it scared Will a little. How did Tony get enough muscles to move a trained agent with ease? Or was it that Will was losing his touch?

“Ah… Tony, wait,” Will flinched. Crap. That was bad. He was supposed to be Clint Barton now. He closed his eyes and called upon his other side. Then with a deep breath, he opened his eyes, the cocky arrogance of Clint Barton settling in his demeanor. “The fuck, Stark? What’s going on?”

“That guy,” Tony growled as he forced his way out of the bar. His grip on Clint’s hands tightened. “He was fucking hitting on you.”

“What of it? It’s a free country. People can hit on whoever they want. Or wait, would that be ‘whomever?’” Clint grouched. He pulled at his hand, resisting Tony’s pull out of the bar. “C’mon, let’s drink some more!”

“No.” Tony’s voice was firm. He yanked at Clint’s hand, pulling the archer along out of the bar and into the alleyway. “There’s something else…” He threw Clint against the alley wall, finally releasing the hold on Clint’s hand. “I’ve seen that guy somewhere before.” He put his hands on both side of Clint, blocking the exit (technically, Clint could have very easily gotten out, but he wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted).

“He’s one of those faces,” Clint said flippantly. The last thing they need is for this to throw off the mission. “You feel like you’ve seen millions of those guys before.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you keep defending him? Do you… actually like him? Shit! Don’t tell me he’s your type?”

Clint’s brows furrowed. “What are you-?”

But before he could finish speaking, Tony’s mouth was against his, his teeth biting harshly into Clint’s lips as their groins met much too close. Then Tony was moving, rubbing against Clint as his mouth worked wonders, and all Clint could see was stars and white flashes as spikes of pleasure hit him in waves. His mouth opened, permitting Tony’s tongue in and their teeth clacked loudly against one another, and Clint moaned as Tony’s hands roamed and found Clint’s ass.

But this wasn’t right.

“Fuck!” Clint pushed Tony harshly away, and he forced his breathing to slow down. Tony was cursing in the background, apologizing, but Clint couldn’t focus on that yet. He had to get his head back in the game. Shit. He was supposed to be the one to seduce Tony Stark. So why was it that he was the one with the shaky knees, the fluttering heart, and the terrible flush? 

“Shit. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Tony rambled. “I didn’t mean… Fuck. Is this about the marriage? You’re married, right? Fuck. I should have known. I mean, I knew, but I didn’t listen. And Pepper was right. I shouldn’t have tried that and-”

“Tony,” Clint called. “What are you talking about? What marriage?”

“But… the ring?”

“This? A friend gave it to me as a memento,” Clint said. It was partially the truth, which was why Clint Barton could say it. “To remind me, you know?” _Remind me of the mission. Remind me that you’re not supposed to mean anything to me. Remind me where I have to return to once the mission’s over._ “Jesus, I ain’t married.”

“Oh…” Tony said. He tilted his head to the side, looking lost and confused. Clint wanted to pull him into his arms and hold him and promise him that everything will be okay. Except it wouldn’t be. 

“So… I’m just not your type, then?” Tony asked, dejected. “You don’t want to fuck me?”

And this was the problem, wasn’t it? Clint wanted to. He wanted to so badly that his heart was aching at the thought of doing this for a mission. But he didn’t want to have sex with Tony for a mission. He wanted to have sex with Tony because he loved him. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something he could exactly voice out loud. 

“That’s not… Shit. Tony, listen to me. I like you. In fact, I think I may even… love you.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why can’t we have sex?”

“Because…” _Because that ultimately means that I’m using you. Because I want to be more than just another notch on your bedpost. Because I want to actually cherish you. Because I want you to love me back._

Clint sighed heavily. “You’re drunk, Tony,” he said softly. “C’mon, let’s get home.”

Tony allowed Clint to take his arm and lead them back home. The billionaire watched the archer carefully, trying to understand their conversation in his drunken state. Clint figured that he wouldn’t remember this after the alcohol wore off. 

He was wrong.  
*  
“Hey Clint!” Tony called in the morning when he spotted the archer cooking once again without a shirt on. He grinned.

“Morning. Your head okay? Any hangovers?” Clint asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He was going to pretend that last night never happened. It never-

Then Tony’s mouth was against Clint’s, hungrily devouring any hesitation and rekindling the fire from last night. And this time, Clint let go of all control, allowing Tony to take the lead as they-

“Sir, Miss Pepper would like to speak with you.”

They pulled apart at the sound of JARVIS’s voice. Tony grinned at Clint. The archer just quickly turned and rushed out of the kitchen, missing the confused look on the billionaire’s face.  
*  
“Pepper, I love him,” Tony declared as soon as he saw his best friend.

There was the smallest pause as Pepper considered what Tony said with a frown. “What are you talking about, Tony? Love? Since when…?”

“Don’t know. But I love him. I love him and I want him to be with me forever. Help me keep him.”

Pepper rubbed her temples. Great. Just great. “So let me guess, you’re going to ignore my ‘don’t fuck him’ advice?”

“Uh… does it count if he fucks me?”

Her only answer was a sigh.  
*  
It took exactly two days for Pepper’s simple plan of getting the two idiots together to work. It took exactly two days for Clint’s flimsy will to fall apart. It took exactly two days for Tony to drag them both to the bedroom, lock the doors, and ravish him thoroughly. For three more days, they stayed in the room, switching positions and trying different styles (Tony was going to have to thank Pepper for her plan). 

When they were tired, they would just curl around one another, holding each other in a way that neither had ever done before. They kissed and fucked and lounged around, and generally ignored everything else but each other. Sometimes, they would talk about their past (or at least as much as Will was willing to admit), about the different peoples in their lives, and just about anything and everything that came to mind.

It was kind of perfect.

JARVIS was forbidden in the room, and the only contact the two had with the outside world was the occasional food and water that Pepper dropped off in front of their room from time to time. Clint pushed off the thoughts of IMF-now- Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, agents, and the mission. Tony pushed off Stark Industry duties.

But that couldn’t last.

“We have to go out sometime, Tony,” Clint whispered softly as he gently ran his fingers through Tony’s hair. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“Why not?” Tony whined as he pulled Clint’s mouth down for a kiss. “We’re perfectly content here. Let the world screw themselves over.”

“See? That’s bad. Stark Industries need their genius leader.”

“Obie will take care of it.”

Ah yes. Obadiah Stane. Clint wasn’t too sure how to feel about the elder man. That man was obviously hiding something. Clint wondered if it had to do with the mission, because Tony Stark was not the one selling weapons to terrorists. It left few others in Stark Industry who had the power and access to those weapons. 

Fuck. The mission. 

Clint screwed his eyes shut at the sudden and painful reminder. What was he doing? He had no time to waste, lying around with Stark! He had to work on the mission. This was a national crisis, and millions of lives were at stake here. He couldn’t be just lazing around. He had to continue onto the mission. He had to push on through. 

Maybe he could beg for Tony’s forgiveness afterwards.

“You okay?” Tony asked. He reached up and poked at Clint’s forehead. “You look a little scared.”

The archer forced himself to smile. Oh, he was going to hurt Tony so terribly. “Hey, you know, I may be your bodyguard, but whenever you have any Stark Industry business, you always take Happy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Pepper insisted. I don’t get why she doesn’t trust you, even after you took that bullet for me.” Tony reached over and patted the scar of the said event. “And you’re never doing that for me again, because damn it, that was scary.”

 _She’s right to not trust me. Tony, I beg of you. Please don’t trust me._ “I’m being paid to do it, remember?” Clint said instead with a goofy smile. “Anyways, I was hoping that I got to go along with you this time, you know? I sort of want to see one of your weapons in action.”

“You want to come to Afghanistan with me?” Tony asked, looking at Clint with hopeful eyes. “Truthfully? Because that would be awesome! Airplane sex!”

Clint chuckled gently, but he couldn’t hide the worry and fear. He could already see the distrust and hate coloring Tony’s face in his mind, and he really didn’t want to turn that into reality.  
*  
“Well would you look at that? They’re actually done having sex,” Pepper said drily when she spotted Will outside of the bedroom.

Will had his forehead pressed against the balcony window, his gray eyes staring out into the city. He turned slowly away from the view to look at Pepper. He smiled tiredly. 

“Sorry,” he said. “It must have been tiring to deal with us.”

Pepper did a double take and looked at Will as if she was seeing him for the first time. She looked around, made sure that Tony wasn’t somewhere hiding to pop out and scream, “Got you!” When the expected Stark prank didn’t come, she turned back to stare at Will with incomprehensible look in her eyes.

“Why are you apologizing? Usually, you’re just as bad as Tony. Did you do something bad? Did you break an expensive vase? Did you destroy my beloved paintings?”

_Worse. I’m going to destroy your best friend’s heart._

“Bullshit.”

Will’s head snapped up and he realized that he must have said his thought out loud, because Pepper was now glaring him down with her trademark “Don’t-give-me-your-bullshit-I’m-Pepper-Potts” look. 

“Don’t give me that shit, Barton,” she snapped. “You walked into our lives, completely tore down Tony’s walls in the span of few minutes after meeting him, and now you’re telling me that you have absolutely no confidence in yourself or Tony for keeping this relationship going?”

“There’s no relationship. It was just three days of pure sex,” he reasoned. Right. There was no relationship. Tony just really liked sex, and that was all the past three days had been. Tony didn’t actually have feelings for Clint. He couldn’t.

“Don’t even!” Pepper groaned. “Gods, you _are_ worse than Tony at this! Of course there’s a relationship! You guys have been eye-fucking since he brought you home! Remember the time he showed you off to everyone and everything in this house? Remember when he bought you random gifts for the hell of it? Remember when you followed him around, just to make sure that he wouldn’t get into trouble? Remember when you took that bullet for him? Remember how devastated he was then and how he refused to move from your bedside afterwards? Remember when he bought out the ice cream shop after you told him that you’ve never had mint chocolate chip flavor before?”

“I’m just going to hurt him!” he shouted, breaking her rant.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, duh. Of course, you will.”

“What…?”

“Clint, everyone who falls in love with one another end up hurting each other. That’s part of being in love. You hurt each other, you patch things up, and you forgive. That’s what love is all about. You can’t back out of it just because you’re scared of hurting Tony. If you don’t do it, someone else will in the future. So just go and tell him you love him.”

Will froze. “I…?”

“Yes, it’s that obvious. Now go.” She made small shooing motions and he couldn’t help but to nod. He was completely out of earshot when she whispered, “Just don’t break him completely, Mr. Brandt.”  
*  
Afghanistan was supposed to be fun. 

It was supposed to be Clint and Tony hanging out under Rhodey’s watchful eyes. It was supposed to have been a simple in and out sale, leaving the rest of the time for Tony and Clint to have fun. Nothing was supposed to happen, goddamn it!

Then the bombs went off, and they were under attack. Clint unfolded his bow and shouldered on his quiver and pulled Tony after him. They stood by the cars as Clint glanced around to make sure that the scene was safe enough to cross through. He motioned them to go forth away from the explosions and hid behind a rock.

“Fuck, why’s this happening?” Tony growled. “This was supposed to have been simple, damn it!”

“Shut up, Tony,” Clint told him before shooting off into the distance. As soon as the arrow left the bow, he grabbed another one from his quiver and nocked it. “This isn’t as easy as it looks, you know.” Then he fired it again and nocked another one.

“What are you even shooting at?” Tony asked, squinting around. “Wait… Are you… Are you shooting down _bullets_?”

“Well, you didn’t want me to take one for you,” Clint said with a shrug. He didn’t bother correcting that there really weren’t any bullets being fired at them. Just missiles and other dangerous things that went boom.

The billionaire couldn’t help but to laugh at that. “Oh, you perfect thing you! I think you outdid yourself this time, Legolas.”

Clint shot down a few more before making his way over to Tony. Grinning, they quickly exchanged a kiss before Clint became distracted by more things to shoot at. Tony thought it was hot. He pulled out his phone, ready to call Pepper and tell her about how perfect Clint was. As soon as they got out of here, he was going to drag Clint down to the bedroom and-

A bomb landed in front of Tony. A bomb that was clearly labeled with the Stark Industry logo.

“Shit,” he whispered.

He moved as quickly as he could, pulling Clint down under him, because damn if Tony was going to let Clint get caught in this blast. He felt the tense muscles of the archer underneath him and he couldn’t help but to wish that the situation had been different. He held Clint’s body as tightly as he dared, not caring the way the bow and arrow poked awkwardly at his side. Clint always worked so hard to keep Tony alive, this was the least he could do, right?

They hit the ground the same time the bomb blew, and the impact knocked Tony into the darkness.  
*  
No! Nononononono! This could not be happening! This just couldn’t be right! How could this have happened?

Will wiggled out from under Tony’s deadweight and looked at Tony, trying to determine all of his injuries. Tony’s back was covered in red. Why was it covered in red? A soft sob left Will’s mouth as he tried his best to stop the bleeding. His mind was chanting, “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” over and over. Or at least he thought that was his mind chanting. He might have been chanting out loud. He wasn’t sure.

Because currently, Tony’s face was being overlapped by an image of photographs from a long time ago in Croatia. Julia’s body chopped up and mangled. Julia’s body ripped up and bloody, all because he didn’t act on his instinct. He should have told Ethan. He should have! Why didn’t he? And now Tony was going to die because he was an idiot who couldn’t even do a simple thing as figure out who the Stark Industry was selling weapons to. 

He pulled Tony’s body close to himself, trying to calm down, trying to remind himself that this was a war zone. There was no time for freaking out. Damn it! What happened to all of his training? He couldn’t panic now! He couldn’t be thinking of Julia (She’s not dead! She’s not dead!). He had to calm down and he had to think rationally. Neither of them was going to survive if Will didn’t pull himself together. But Will couldn’t pull himself together.

So Clint Barton took a deep breath and slowly lowered Tony’s body back down to the ground. He reached for the ring around his neck and yanked it free. Taking Tony’s left hand without much thought, he slipped the ring on his ring finger. _Huh,_ he thought to himself. _A perfect fit._ He held onto Tony’s hands and squeezed it lightly.

“We’ll get out of this,” he whispered softly. “I promise.”

Then he stood, his bow and arrows ready. He fired at the helicopters that were raining them down with missiles. He fired at the missiles, trying to, at the very least, change their directions. He was going to protect Tony, if that was the last thing he did. Tony had his ring, so at least Ethan and his team would be able to track the billionaire down. 

His eyes saw it before his brain registered what it was, and his body moved before his nerve endings could inform the brain exactly what would happen if he didn’t move now. Clint threw himself over Tony’s body and shielded him from the heat of the explosion.

 _Too close! Too close!_ He felt the burn through the suit that Tony bought for him. He felt it clearly and hoped that it wouldn’t get anywhere near Tony. Tony had to live. Tony had to…

He blacked out to that thought.  
*  
“Guys?” Benji called as he stared at the laptop screen in horror.

“What now, Benji?” Jane asked as she stepped into the meeting room to brief about their current mission. “Did you find something interesting?”

“Remember that weapon sales thingie that Brandt went to with the target?”

At the mention of Brandt, Benji found that he suddenly had the attention of Ethan, Fury, and Phil as well. 

“Uh… they were just attacked,” Benji said. “I found an encrypted message from a soldier there. He said that they were attacked by advanced weaponry. Probably Stark tech. They’re not too sure how many are missing or dead.”

“Get a lock on Brandt’s location,” Ethan demanded, ignoring the sharp look from Fury. “He’s too good to be dead.”

“Erm… there’s some sort of an interference,” Benji reported. He sounded far away, as if he wasn’t even sure of what he was seeing anymore. “The satellite’s having a hard time picking up the signal.”

There was a thick silence as everyone considered their next move.

“There are two possibilities,” Fury said calmly. “The sand of Afghanistan suddenly developed special metal alloys just like the one used to make the ring or Agent Brandt is somewhere underground surrounded by those metal alloys.”

“I’m going to Afghanistan,” Ethan declared automatically.

“Agent Hunt,” Coulson tried to reason despite the horror and grief in his eyes (This was something that Will was particularly good at: Pointing out flaws to a plan. When Will helped train Phil, it was the number one thing that Phil tried to pick up), “the probability of Will’s surv-”

“We know the stats, Phil,” Jane said as she moved to stand behind Ethan. “And we’re still going.”

“Well, we were always good with impossible missions,” Benji mentioned nervously as he began to pack up his laptop.

Fury looked at them and sighed softly. “You’ll have to wait until I run this through with the High Council,” he said reluctantly. “Then we’ll figure out what to do from there.”  
*  
When Tony Stark woke up, it was in a dark room that looked to be more of a cave. The room was filled with strange gadgets and gismos, but he didn’t have to look twice to know what they were for. For creating things. Things like weapons.

There was a man by his side, who took his time to explain everything. Yinsen, he introduced himself as. Yinsen explained that they were captured by the Ten Rings, and that Tony was lucky because Yinsen found out how to hook up a fucking car battery to his chest to stop a shrapnel from entering his heart. Yinsen did not talk about anyone else that the Ten Rings brought back. And that was more than scary, because Tony had a ring on his finger that wasn’t there before.

“Okay, that’s nice,” he said, interrupting Yinsen for the umpteenth time. “But I’m asking if there was another guy they brought back. He’s kind of short, dirty blonde hair, kind of arrogant in that endearing sort of way… Ring any bells?”

“Well, they were celebrating over a capture,” Yinsen admitted. “But I thought it was because they have you.”

Tony groaned. “So basically, you have no idea?”

Yinsen shook his head. 

Great. Just great. Tony stared at his hands, more specifically at the ring. He survived a bomb explosion and was now alive because of his name. But Clint? 

“Damn it,” he whispered softly. “You were supposed to have lived, you idiot.”  
*  
“So what you’re saying is Agent Brandt is possibly dead or captured, and there is absolutely no way for the satellite to locate him?” asked one of the High Council members.

“Basically, yes,” Fury answered.

“Well, then isn’t here only one thing to do? Disavow him.”


	3. Till Death Do Us Apart

A harsh slap across his face brought him back down to earth. His eyes opened wide and they began to dart across the room, searching. He didn’t find what he was looking for, but he had a better idea of where he was. He was in a cave of some sort, surrounded by clichéd terrorist wannabes. They had guns and they had what looked to be a torture kit that every villain always seemed to have a stock of.

He tried to move and found that he couldn’t even do that freely. He was currently in a kneeling position, his arms twisted behind him in an uncomfortable position. A small jerk assured him that they were currently held that way by chains that were attached to the ceiling. And now that he was focusing, he realized that his back was burning with pain and that he was currently shirtless. Did the explosion burn his back? Was that why he was in pain?

“What’s a famous agent like you doing in Afghanistan with Tony Stark?” someone asked him in English.

He was probably the leader, Will figured. The man didn’t look anything impressive, but Will remembered seeing the man’s face before. Raza. Leader of Ten Rings. Of course Will knew his face and the Ten Rings. He had seen the files once before IMF went to tank. He saw it because the Secretary had wanted to look into that next. And because they had all gotten so caught up with Cobalt and reforming IMF into Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, they had completely ignored the Ten Rings.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Will told Raza calmly. “Who’s a famous agent?”

“You are, Mr. William Brandt,” Raza answered with a smirk. He pulled out a pixelated photo and held it up for Will to see. It was a photo of the time when Will had a discussion with the President about the future of IMF. It had been taken with a cellphone camera, of that Will had no doubt. But who had taken it? And how? The security around the president was higher than the Empire State building, and Will had made sure to keep his face hidden to all but select few high officials. So how?

All these questions, however, was rather moot, because the picture proved exactly Raza’s point and Will could already see what was coming from a mile away. They would want to know about top secret government information. They would want to know about his agency. They would want to know why he was with Stark. Speaking of which, where was the billionaire? Did he make it out of there alive? Was he somewhere hidden by the terrorist? Or was he buried in the sands of a cruel desert?

“You know of information that no normal agents do,” Raza continued. He smirked at the flash of worry in Will’s eyes. “Oh, don’t give us that look, Mr. Brandt. Did you really think we don’t know? You’re a big-shot in the newly formed agency. We have pictures and documents to prove it. So why don’t you drop the act and help out a fellow murderer?”

Clint scoffed at that (He had to be Clint now. Brandt was too fragile. Too broken from Croatia. He might not make it through this. Besides, Clint had more snark, more power. It might keep them alive longer). “That’s hilarious. My name is Clint Barton,” he said, shaking his head. He ignored the pain that simple action flared in his back. “You think I know something? I’m just a carnie. Sure, I used to pretend to be a spy, but who didn’t?”

“I didn’t,” Raza told him flatly. “I used to pretend to be a terrorist. And look where we are now. You, a government agent, and me a terrorist. You held down with chains with no way to escape. Me with loyal men ready to riddle your body with bullets at my whim.”

“So why don’t you?” Clint asked with a cocky smirk. “I’m just a circus boy. There’s not a single thing that I know that can even come close to helping you. I don’t know why you think I’m William Brandt, but-”

“Cute games, but they won’t work on us,” the terrorist shot back. “We’ve seen your files, Mr. Brandt. Your birth name is Clint Barton. You switched your name to William Brandt when you joined in with an unnamed secret agency.”

That couldn’t be. And Clint Barton was shoved aside, because William Brandt had to make his way to the surface. What did Raza mean that he had his files? No one should have those files. Those files were kept under lock and key, and after the Ghost Protocol, it should have been destroyed and never recreated.

Unless Fury did so.

But Fury was crazy about security. He would never let anyone who wasn’t at least level 7 clearance of Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division touch those files. And Will had personally aided in rooting out any moles. Did someone hack…?

Will shivered at the thought and mentally flinched at the pain that caused his back. Fuck. Why hadn’t he seen it? There was only one company in the whole world that Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division couldn’t hack into and that was Stark Industries. Using that logic, didn’t that also mean that SI was the only place in the world that could potentially hack into the agency? More specifically, one person?

“Drop the act while we’re being nice, alright, Mr. Brandt?”

Will just glared at Raza’s smiling face.

“So why are you here in Afghanistan with Tony Stark?” If they were asking this, then didn’t that mean that Tony wasn’t involved in this? Will hung onto that hope.

“No reason.”

“So you are nothing to Mr. Stark?”

“Nothing.”

“Interesting,” Raza said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind if we bring Mr. Stark in here?”

He clapped his hands and the doors of the cave-like-room opened to reveal Tony Stark who was led into the room at gun point, which informed Will that Tony was in the same trouble as he was (unless this was an elaborate plan by Stark. Frankly, Will wouldn’t put it past him, but this wasn’t Tony’s style. None of this was Tony’s style). Tony’s eyes widened when he spotted Will, and the agent did not miss the flash of relief and fear in the intelligent eyes. Nor did the agent miss the brightly glowing blue circle on Tony’s chest (Please don’t be a bomb, Will thought). The billionaire pretended to be fine and looked around the room, considering what to do.

“Mr. Stark,” Raza greeted. “I’ve always dreamed of meeting you. Your weapons have finally given me the edge I need to get far in life.”

“Oh gee, thanks. If that’s all, me and my friend here will like to get out of here. If you’ll just undo the chains-”

Raza sighed, almost disappointed. “You don’t seem to grasp the situation here, Mr. Stark. You hold no power.”

“Really? True, you guys have big shinny guns and can shoot us and kill us at any moment,” Tony said. “But you also could have very easily left us to die in the explosion. But you didn’t. You want us both alive for some reason, so there’s no way that you’re going to be killing either of us any time soon. That alone gives me power.”

“Ah, very smart, Mr. Stark. So by your logic, why is it that I’m keeping you alive?”

Tony’s face darkened and he gulped harshly. He knew what his fate was alright. But that didn’t mean he had to be honest nor did it mean that he had to show his fears. “So you guys can all be terrorist-wannabes and frighten Americans. What else is there to say?”

Raza turned to Tony with a curious expression on his face. “And why would I need him-” he pointed at Will- “alive as well?”

The situation before him made Will understand perfectly that Tony was not part of this. Besides, Tony wasn’t good at elaborate lies. He couldn’t be a part of this. Well, that meant that they were in the same boat. And if Tony was to let someone know that he was together with Will… _Don’t answer it. Please Tony. Don’t tell them anything._

“Because he’s pretty damn hot,” is Tony’s automatic reply. “So if you dare touch him in any way-”

Will squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Fuck. So much for keeping their relationship a secret from the terrorist. He knew it wasn’t Tony’s fault. He wasn’t wired like an agent. He hadn’t heard the horror stories, seen the evidence ( _Julia is not dead. She’s not dead. Stop it, Brandt!_ )But he couldn’t stop the rising feeling of dread and panic.

At the sudden sound of laughter from the terrorist leader, Tony growled. Will wished his hand was free because he could feel a headache coming on and he was sorely tempted to rub his temples.

“What do you mean by ‘touch,’ Mr. Stark?” Raza asked.

He moved slowly towards Will, which caused visible tension with Tony. The guns all pointed at Stark, and Tony stilled at the pleading look in Will’s eyes. Raza stopped right besides Will.

“Do you mean like this?” With a victorious grin, he pulled Will’s head up by his hair. Will grunted at the pain that shot through his back. “Or maybe you mean like this?” This time, Raza reached over with his other hand and caressed Will’s cheeks. “But whatever it is, what does it matter to you? Whether we hurt-” Something jabbed harshly into Will’s back and the agent barely concealed his gasp of pain and surprise. “-Or ‘touch’ him, why do you care?”

Like hell Clint would let Raza have this victory! Baring his teeth against the hand that held his hair hostage, the archer did the one thing that William Brandt could not bring himself to do.

He told the truth.

“He doesn’t!” Clint snarled. He did not miss the way Tony flinched at that, the way the genius’s forehead wrinkled with worry, the way the billionaire’s eyes shone with questions. “I mean nothing to him, because I am William Brandt, agent of IMF. I’ve been lying to him for the last year to get close to him. You won’t get anything from him through me because now he knows the truth. I’m nothing but a traitor.”

Raza raised a brow as he forced Clint’s head back further to look into the archer’s eyes. Clint hissed as his back shot pain up his spine, but he forced himself to meet Raza’s gaze head on.

“Oh, I don’t need to, Mr. Brandt,” the terrorist informed him with a grin. “Because we’ll get everything from you through him.”

A soft curse left Clint’s mouth. Shit. Why hadn’t he seen that? That should have been obvious. Now he had just admitted to Raza who he was, what he did. And Tony… Clint couldn’t tilt his head to see him, but he could see out of the peripheral view and knew without a doubt the confusion in Tony’s eyes, the hurt.

“Clint, what’s he talking about?” Tony asked softly, completely ignoring the terrorists. “What are you talking about? William Brandt? The IM… what?”

Well, there were two choices. Deny everything, which left a terrible taste in Clint’s mouth even thinking about it, or continue to tell the truth, make things worse with Raza and Tony. William Brandt would have chosen the first choice without hesitation. In fact, he would never even be in this situation because he was William fucking Brandt and he didn’t slip any important information.

“The IMF. I’m an agent working for it. I was hired to seduce you and steal information from you. You mean nothing to me. The past year? None of it was real.”

It was a lie. It was a combination of lies and more lies. It was what William Brandt specialized in. He wasn’t going to let any information slip. At least nothing recent. Nothing true anymore.

Tony was silent and he wouldn’t meet Will’s eyes. But this was for the best. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Besides, it was best that it happened now, so that the terrorists couldn’t use him as leverage over Tony. It was better this way.

Then why did his heart feel like it was about to burst into million pieces?  
*  
“What do you mean disavowed?” Ethan asked, his voice dangerously low.

“I mean exactly that. Part of the deal in keeping IMF’s skeleton meant that we kept its idea of disavowing any agents who got captured,” Fury explained.

Phil’s fists tightened but otherwise showed no other signs of distress. Jane let out a low growl, and Benji glared openly at the director. Even Maria Hill, who had the least contact with Will, looked frustrated and angry.

“Which is why I’ll have no choice but to force you to stop trying to rescue William Brandt,” Fury said.

“Fuck that! Like hell we’ll stop!” Jane snapped.

But Fury ignored her and continued to speak. “And give you this new mission instead.”

He handed Ethan a file, which the leader looked through carefully. At the end of it, there was a hidden smile behind the calm raised eyebrows of his. He then passed the file around to the next person. Jane let out a small laugh when she saw the file. Benji shook his head and muttered, “Well duh!” Maria allowed the smallest of all smiles, and Phil let out a puff of breath in relief.

“Your mission, Agents Hunt, Carter and Dunn, should you choose to accept it, is to recruit one Clint Barton to the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. His abilities are the best in his field, and we believe he will make a great asset. His location is somewhere in Afghanistan, and it is up to you to locate and bring him to our base.”

Everyone else grinned. “Oh, we accept alright,” Ethan said.  
*  
He lied.

He fucking lied.

Clint Barton lied and was a lie and worst of all, he didn’t love Tony Stark.

When they put a gun next to his head and told him to create a weapon for them, he refused. They tried to put a gun next to Yinsen’s head, too. Yinsen begged him not to. But it wasn’t until they threatened to hurt Clint (the liar, the traitor) that he agreed (Yinsen would later argue that he begged them to let him make the weapons but he would deny it to the bitter end).

“Alright,” Tony said. “I’ll do it.”

He didn’t tell them that what he was creating was actually a weapon to bust out of here. Why should he? He wasn’t that crazy, and despite what Clint may believe about him, Tony did know how to keep a secret.  
*  
“Special Agents from Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division,” said a man wearing a suit and sunglasses. “We’re here to help investigate.”

Behind him, a woman in business suit was waving a strange looking device over the sands. The device was connected to a laptop that another man in business suit was holding. They were both conversing lowly in a familiar way that spoke of years of working together.

Rhodey frowned. “Why are the suits getting involved?” he demanded. “And how the hell did you know about this?”

“Does it matter?” the man asked in a rather charming way. “We’re lending you our resources. Don’t question us.”  
*  
Clint Barton grinned as someone kicked him in the face. He was sure that his nose was broken by now, especially with the repeated hittings. The iron he tasted in his mouth was probably the least of his worries. But he couldn’t register the pain anymore. He couldn’t register how much blood he was losing nor why he was laughing.

Raza was impressed, but that didn’t mean much when his prisoner wasn’t cooperating.

“Mr. Brandt, I thought we came to an agreement that you’ll tell us everything?”

“Really? When was that? Did you also get it in writing, because I don’t really remember much since you guys keep hitting my fucking head!” Clint yelled back, the grin never disappearing from his lips. “Man, are you stupid or something? You’re hitting my head while telling me to remember crap? Am I the only one seeing how that’s messed up?”

“If you don’t agree, we will kill Mr. Stark,” Raza stated.

“You can’t kill him. You want him to make you weapons. Because that’s what you want, am I right? You want more weapons to kill people. That’s why you want me to spill information, because then that will give you information to attack the US.”

“If you know it, then why don’t you comply with us? You know they won’t be coming for you. They never come for captured agents.”

“Ah, but they’ll be coming after Stark. What, you think that I haven’t figured it out? They aren’t going to let a public weapons manufacturer for them disappear like this!” Clint laughed happily. “You’re all going to get found and killed. Wouldn’t that be a fitting ending for shits like you?”

Raza smirked at that. “You’re quite wrong, I’m afraid. No one will be coming after either Mr. Stark or you. We’ve made sure of it. You’re not the only one with friends in high places.”

It made Clint laugh. Because he was so damned close. Raza was coming close to spilling the beans on who in Stark Industry was selling weapons to terrorist organization. And he didn’t even seem to realize it.

“Now why don’t you tell us more?” Raza asked with a smile. He motioned for the others to approach Clint with hot irons.

The archer just laughed through it all. Because nothing hurt compared to seeing the betrayal in Tony’s eyes.  
*  
“Jane, Ethan,” Benji declared with a dramatic flourish. “Let me be the first to tell you guys that the sands of Afghanistan did not, in fact, turn into the special metal alloy we used for Will’s ring.”

A soft sigh of relief left Jane’s mouth. “At least that means we don’t have to try and dig through all the sand,” she said.

“But it still leaves the question of where he is,” Ethan said, chewing lightly at his thumb knuckle. “Is there any mines nearby?”

“Even better,” Benji said. “There’s a mountain filled with the same alloy.”

Jane groaned. “Great. Now we get to look through a mountain for Will. Do we tell this to the military guy?”

“Let them figure it out themselves. It’ll give us enough time to completely shut down whoever is behind this. Only after we have Will safe in our arms do we tell them. Got it?” Ethan glared at the other two, daring them to disagree.

The other two nodded mutely, hiding any potential concern or worry. Usually Will was the one who pointed out flaws to any plans. But Will wasn’t there right now.  
*  
Tony didn’t know how many days had passed. He was working, and whenever he worked, he never paid attention to the time. Yinsen must have realized this, because he was always trying to make sure that Tony stayed eating, stayed alive. It was odd not having Pepper or JARVIS or Clint around to do that for him.

“You can get out of here,” Yinsen said.

“We’ll both get out. And Clint… or Will or whoever he is, too. We’re all going to get out,” Tony insisted. Then they were going to talk. Because this couldn’t be it. He didn’t know if this was Clint’s way of trying to protect Tony or if this was all the truth. But he wasn’t just about to let this end like that.

There was no way that Clint could have faked everything.

… Was there?  
*  
“You think no one will come after us? Tony has friends. They have resources beyond just military and government. Just because no one’s coming after a lowly agent like me, doesn’t mean they won’t come after him, fucktard!”

Clint wasn’t sure what he was screaming. In fact, he really wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He knew he was cursing a lot. He had to be. He always cursed whenever he was in pain. And he hadn’t been in so much pain since he found out that Swordsman had been stealing money, since he realized that his mentor was not the honest hero that he had always believed him to be (Will would argue that Croatia was more painful. Clint would always disagree).

Who knew how much time had passed? He certainly wasn’t keeping track of it. All he knew was that they tried to feed him from time to time. They would hold food in front of him with their hands and force him to lick their fingers clean. Whatever fell to the ground was left there for Clint to try and reach for himself, if he was really that hungry (he never was). They never told him the time. Instead, they came up with different games they could play with him instead.

There was the ‘See how long it takes to make Clint scream’ game that included various torture objects and often ended with them prodding his back with something hot. Then there was the ‘Sick Mental Torture’ game that included them coming up with various things that they could do to Clint and often ended as a lead up to the previous game. There were few others that were the variations of those two games, all set to make him talk, but he never did.

At least not about the things that they wanted to hear.

“Oh, was that your goal?” Raza asked with a sneering laugh. “You thought someone from Stark Industry was going to come save you? Don’t you know who sold me the files on you? Don’t you know why we have Stark technology that destroyed Mr. Stark’s feeble military guards? Don’t you know how it is that you were taken hostage? My, for a special agent, you aren’t very sharp.”

“Are you saying that Tony’s friends are behind this? Don’t fuck around!”

“Why is that so hard to believe? You fucked around with him as his friend, didn’t you? So why don’t you believe that someone close to him can betray him?” Raza chuckled. “You, sir, are rather naive.”

Or rather blind and stupid. William Brandt cursed. Of course. Why the fuck not? He should have known! Should have fucking kept his eyes open. His brain flipped through the people that Tony knew. What was he not seeing? It couldn’t be Pepper Potts. She loved Stark too much. Rhodey? No. Not close enough to Stark Industry. Then…

Oh.

_Oh._

“Obadiah Stane.”

“Bingo.”  
*  
“Yinsen! Yinsen!”

Tony Stark watched the one person who had helped him survive in this cave die in front of his eyes. He saw the lights go out, the last breath leaving. Yinsen knew he was going to die. That was the reason why he wanted to help, why he wanted to run forward to try to buy Tony some time.

He didn’t want to lose any more people. He had to find Clint.

And if Clint wanted to leave, then Tony would let him go. But until then, Tony would find Clint and hold tightly onto him.  
*  
When Ethan Hunt, Jane Carter, and Benji Dunn found the ones responsible for taking Will, it was a little late. They arrived at the burning campsite in time to see something fly out of there. They weren’t sure what they saw, but they had something else important to do.

First, they had to find Will. Then they’ll take their time to destroy this place, which was sort of burning down already.  
*  
The suit of armor short-circuited and dropped the two of them in the middle of the desert. Clint groaned as he landed harshly on his back, a few feet away from the suit of armor that seemed to have sunk into the ground. Despite the pain, he forced himself to move. He forced himself to crawl towards Tony Stark, whose metal helmet had fallen off a while back and was now looking at him with an undecipherable look.

“The fuck was that?!” Clint demanded, his voice barely above a whisper (It was sore from all the talking and screaming and laughing he did during those ‘games’). “Where the hell did you get this armor?” The question he was really dying to ask was ‘Why did you come for me?’ But it wouldn’t leave his mouth.

“Made it myself. Property of Stark,” Tony answered in a dismissing tone as he waved his hand. “Yeah, it doesn’t look too good, but I was limited in what they had in the cave.” Then he took a more somber tone. “Is it true? About you being an agent. About you… seducing me?”

So that was why. Tony wanted to hear the truth. He wanted to know that he had been betrayed. Well fine. If the truth was what Tony wanted, then that was what he was going to get.

“Yes,” Clint admitted. “I was assigned to seduce you.”

“And then to steal top secret Stark information?”

Clint nodded reluctantly.

There was a pause as Tony stared at Clint carefully. “And did you get it?” he asked finally.

 _No point in lying._ Clint nodded again.

“So what now?”

Indeed. What now? His mission was over. There was no reason to hang by Tony… No, Stark. It was Stark. Damn. He had to get that straight in his head. He had to get all of this straightened. His mission was compromised. His identity was revealed. But he had the necessary information. That was all that mattered.

Then why did his heart ache so much?

“I leave and you forget that I ever existed.”

Tony nodded slowly. “Alright.” But if Clint ever went back on his word, then Tony wasn’t going to let the agent go. Because he still didn’t quite believe it. This had to be part of Clint’s agent training. This had to be a reflex for him. Clint would come around. Clint had to.

Because Clint loved him, didn’t he?  
*  
Benji winced a little as Jane mercilessly took down anyone who tried to run out of the campsite. He bit back a yelp as Ethan ruthlessly shot down everyone else at point blank. They had tried the whole “angry-agents-demanding-where-the-hostages-are-hidden” trick, but it appeared that these guys were too freaked out to answer properly. And since they opened fire on the three agents, Ethan and Jane took that as a sign to just get rid of them.

It wasn’t that Benji was a sissy or too much of a techie to actually fight. It was more that he preferred leaving the messy killing to Jane and Ethan (and Will, if he wasn’t too busy playing analyst). Besides, he had to look at his handheld periodically, just to make sure that if the satellite picked up Will’s signal, they could get out of there.

“Holy shit, no wonder the satellite didn’t work here,” Benji muttered to himself. “This whole place is a big mine! I think the ring might have been created with the alloys from here.”

The other two answered in more gunshots.

It wasn’t until then that Benji noticed that his handheld was blinking in a rather worrisome fashion. “Er… I hate to interrupt you guys having fun, but uh…”

“What, Benji?” Jane snarled as she shot someone else in the head and then twice in the chest.

“I just located Will.”


	4. Till Death Do Us Apart

“So that’s it, then?” Tony asked. “We say goodbye. You go do whatever it is that you agents do. I go back to taking care of Stark business. It’s as if we’ve never met before in our lives.”

Clint nodded. “That’s exactly it.”

The two stared at one another, nothing else left to be said. Tony sighed and rubbed at his face. “Kind of hot here, isn’t it?”

The archer nodded again. He looked like he was about to say something but instead slumped against Tony’s armor, face down. The billionaire blinked. Shoot. He should have been more careful. He had seen the damages left on Clint’s back. He knew that they had been hurting Clint. Why hadn’t he tried to protect him better? Why?

Then three figures ran towards them while shouting, “Will! Will!” And Tony knew without a doubt that this would be their goodbye… for now.  
*  
By the time Rhodey and the rest of the military came near the place, all they found was Tony Stark lying in a pool of broken armor while sipping Capri Sun with sunglasses on. Nearby, they would find the Ten Rings campsite, filled with broken and dead bodies as well as literally nothing that could be used anymore.

Tony would not talk about his time in Afghanistan. He would just return back to the USA, declare that Stark Industry won’t create any more weapons, and ignore twin looks of worry from Rhodey and Pepper.  
*  
“Tony, why are you doing this?” Pepper asked gently as she could. “And where’s Clint?”

The billionaire shrugged almost nonchalantly, but Pepper had been with him too long to not recognize the look of pure hurt that he was masking.

“Tony, I’m serious. Where’s Clint?”

There was a low, frustrated growl ruminating from Tony. He ran a hand through his hair, but otherwise made no other move to stop whatever it was that he was making this time.

“ _Tony_ ,” Pepper tried again.

He ignored her and continued on with his project. He did not voice his hurt or his hopes. Clint had to come back. He had to. Clint said he loved him. That wasn’t just for the sake of the mission, was it?  
*  
“His back won’t be the same,” the doctor said. “And that’s putting it lightly.”

“When will he wake up?” Fury demanded.

The doctor shrugged. “Whenever the drugs wears off. And that’s on the assumption that he wants to wake up. I don’t know what he went through there, but…”

“But what?”

“Well, it’s just… he doesn’t seem to have much will to live.”

Fury frowned, but he did not answer.  
*  
Phil Coulson did not like being used as a no-name, lowly agent to talk to someone like Tony Stark. If he could, he would prefer never to talk to someone like Stark. Ever.

If only Will would wake up, then there would be no need for this stupid debriefing of the richest and most arrogant man that Phil ever had the worst luck to grace. They would just talk to Will, they would just debrief with the cleaver and quiet agent, who had been kind enough to take Phil under his wing and teach him few things about secret government agencies and survival in general.

It wasn’t irritation that graced Phil’s face when Stark ignored him. It wasn’t frustration that filled his eyes when no one in Stark Industry would call him back. And it definitely wasn’t worry and fear that gripped him when Will still didn’t wake up. Phil Coulson was taught by the best of the best.

He knew better than to show his emotion.  
*  
“Wait. Did you just say Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division?” Pepper asked as she hurriedly led Phil out of the Stark Industry building.

“Yes. I’m sure I’ve been saying it for the past hundred times we’ve met,” he added, his tone bland. Oh, if only Will could see him now… the analyst would no doubt beam with pride.

“I’m sorry about that,” Pepper said, her voice suddenly tight and controlled.

Uh-oh. That didn’t sound pretty. Phil frowned. What was going on?

“How’s Mr. Brandt anyways?” Pepper continued. “We haven’t seen him in a while.”

Well shit. They were in a bigger trouble than Phil had realized.  
*  
“So Obadiah Stane was the one responsible for all of this?” Fury asked, raising a curious brow at Phil at the report.

“Yes sir,” Phil said with a curt nod. “He was also the one selling weapons to terrorists as well as the one who paid the said terrorist to kidnap both Stark and Brandt.”

Fury tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Interesting… Do you have the cover story that I prepared for Stark? Give him that and make sure that no one knows the identity of Ironman.”

“Understood, sir,” Phil said. He was ready to leave when a certain thought came to his mind. “Uh… Sir, one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Miss Potts, sir. She… er… Apparently she has read William Brandt’s file.”

“… WHAT?!”  
*  
It was official. Pepper Potts was beyond angry and frustrated.

“What do you mean I can’t go see him?” she demanded in a flat tone. Those who knew her well knew that a quiet, flat-toned Pepper was the most dangerous Pepper in the world. Unfortunately for Phil Coulson, he didn’t know her all that well.

“I mean just that, ma’am,” he answered politely with a bland smile. “Agent Brandt is still healing, and he needs his rest. Everyone who isn’t a Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division operative has been forbidden from seeing him.”

Pepper rolled her eyes at that. “Don’t you mean no one but your agents have gone to see him? And you guys seriously need to get a better name. It’s a mouthful to say every single time.”

“There is nothing wrong with saying Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division every single time,” Phil shot back, still polite. “Now, if that is all, I have some important Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division work to do. Please stop bothering us about seeing Agent Brandt.”

“Easy for you to say! Do you know what it’s like watching your best friend waste away in the lab for reasons he won’t say? Do you know what it’s like to see the pain in his eyes grow as each day passes, how he keeps shutting himself out form the rest of the world? Do you know what it’s like to see him become more and more of an asshole in hopes of protecting himself? Do you know what it’s like to kick out scamps after scamps, all because he’s desperate for the connection he used to have? That connection that was severed by a fucking shady agency?!”

“Miss Potts,” Phil said. He held up his hands in hopes of trying to calm her down. “This is for the best. You should return.”

“I thought you were a friend,” she whispered softly. Then she turned to leave. But if there was one thing that no one should underestimate, it was Pepper’s determination for making her best friend happy.  
*  
Clint Barton awoke to the sound of a heartbeat monitor beeping in the background, and a woman yelling at a man. _Jeesh, what did Tony do now?_ was the first thought that came to his mind until the reality of the situation settled in.

“You should have called me!” the woman yelled. “I should have been here!”

He was lying on his stomach, and there was intense pain coming from his back. His arms felt as if someone stuffed them with iron, and his legs were in no better shape. What had happened? Did he get smashed drinking with Tony again and… He let out a low groan.

Afghanistan.

“Will!” the woman said, relief obvious in her voice.

“… Tasha?” Oh. Okay. Wrong redhead. Well, of course, it was the wrong redhead. Why would Pepper Potts be doing here after what he did to Tony? “My head hurts. What happened?”

“Where do you want us to start, Mr. Barton? The part where William Brandt was disavowed or the part where Clint Barton was recruited for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division?” Fury asked in his usual sarcastic biting way. “Or perhaps we should start with why the hell Pepper Potts know about us, or more specifically you? Or how do you feel about the part where Tony fucking Stark built a suit of iron and decides to become a superhero?”

“… Okay… what the hell happened while I was asleep?”  
*  
Ethan walked into the hospital room to see Will humming a song under his breath while he worked on some paperwork while lying on his stomach. It was a scene that Ethan had walked in on many times before during their earlier missions, and it was thousand times relieving to see Will awake than to see him unconscious and hooked to machines.

“Hey you,” he called as he placed recently acquired flowers in the vase. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, just fine,” Will answered, still humming. He was grinning slightly as he continued to scribble into the paper and looked much too pleased with himself.

Ethan frowned. And now that he paid closer attention, he realized something very crucially wrong about the picture before him. Will was humming “Call Me Maybe.” But Will didn’t listen to Top 40. Will listened to jazz or classic or blues or… some other clichéd analyst music. And now that Ethan peered over, he realized that Will wasn’t filling in paperwork.

He was doodling on some celebrity’s face in a magazine.

“… Will?” Ethan asked slowly. “Is there something you want to… talk about?”

The other man just laughed loudly and ignored the question.  
*  
“Tony, we need to talk,” Pepper declared as she walked into the lab.

The said genius ignored her for his work. She just rolled her eyes and physically moved to separate him from it.

“Tony, what happened during Afghanistan?” she asked for the millionth time.

He just shrugged, unwilling to meet her eyes.

“Alright, then what happened to Clint?”

Again, just a shrug. Again, he didn’t meet her eyes.

Pepper sighed. “Did he tell you that he’s an agent? Is that what this is all about?”

Tony suddenly looked at her, his eyes widened with alarm and amazement. “What the-?! Pepper, how do you…?”

“I saw the files, too,” Pepper said. “So what exactly happened? He realized that you knew he was an agent and fled?”

The billionaire frowned, his brows wrinkling a bit. “Not exactly. He told me he was an agent and that he had what he came for. He said I’m to pretend that I never saw him before in his life and just… go on with my own, you know?”

“You’re doing a terrible job of both,” she told him frankly.

He smiled wiry. “Not my fault… Wait. What do you mean you read his files, ‘too?’ I’ve never seen any part of Clint Barton’s file that mentioned that he was a secret agent!”

“What? But… it was on your desk at Stark Industry. It was about Agent William Brandt. His real name is Clint Barton. He joined an unnamed secret government agency six years ago and changed his name. Few years back, the secret government agency came out of the shadows and changed their name to Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division… Are you sure you didn’t see it?”

“No. I didn’t. On my desk, you say? And Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division? Isn’t that where Coulson works…?” Tony’s eyes reflected the slight fear and worry that he was undoubtedly feeling. But it was overshadowed by the gears churning, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. “You don’t think Obie…?”

“Obie stole the files?” Pepper wondered. “Then he hired the Ten Rings to kill you and paid them with Clint?”

“Pepper, call Agent Coulson. He should know something about this.”  
*  
“Sir, I’m a… little concerned with Agent Barton’s behavior,” Maria Hill said, stating what was going on through everyone’s heads without a single hesitation, which was exactly the quality that had set her apart from the rest.

Fury let out a small groan and rubbed his temples. “What did he do now?” he asked tiredly.

“He… er… He shot one of the other patients, sir. With a banana spiked with a high dose of sedative.”

“Send the patient a sincere apology with a fruit basket,” the director said, answering the unasked question. “And someone figure out why he’s been 1, shooting arrows at everyone and everything. 2, trying to escape medical through air vents. 3, stealing the hospital’s magazines to doodle eye patches on the celebrities’ faces. 4, shaved off the doctor’s eyebrows while getting a checkup. And… And just figure out why he’s behaving like a little kid rather than an analyst.”  
*  
Phil Coulson really hated his life right now.

He was sitting in front of Pepper Potts and Tony Stark with a thick file on William Brandt. Well shit. So Pepper hadn’t been bluffing when she said that she saw his file. Phil didn’t even know that Will had one! Did everyone have a file? Or was Brandt just special? But shouldn’t have all files on William Brandt been destroyed when he was disavowed? And how the hell did Stark and Pepper get these files, and for how long did they have it? Did they know about how much Phil looked up to Will? Was he going to be blackmailed because of it?

“And what is this supposed to be?” Phil asked with a casual raise of his eyebrow.

“This is the file of William Brandt, real name Clint Barton,” Tony said, his eyes tracking every move that Phil was making. “I want to know why he doesn’t exist anywhere else but in these files. It’s like he disappeared. But that can’t be true. Everyone leaves behind some sort of trail.”

“Unless the trail was erased by those who usually create them,” Pepper noted.

“You think the government got rid of this William Brandt?”

“Drop the act, Agent. We have your files, too.” Tony grinned. He handed the files over to Phil, letting him have a quick glance through it to show him that he wasn’t bluffing. “I have a theory on why William Brandt is gone. It’s because too many people found out about him. So you guys got rid of him. You probably gave him a different identity. I want to know what.”

Phil, to his credit, looked very blandly at Tony. He didn’t show any outwardly annoyance at Stark or any anger at the nerve of the man to try and blackmail a federal agent. To think that his first time being ‘tortured’ would be at the hands of the most obnoxious man in the world…

“There’s nothing to say,” he said, just as he had been trained. “You can try whatever you want, but I’m not going to say anything.”

“Yeah, I figured you’ll say that,” Tony admitted. Pepper gave him a confused look. “Which is why I decided to hack into your precious ‘Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,’ you guys really need to get a better name for that. What about SHIELD? It’s nice, simple, and it just rolls off the tongue. Anyways, so I hacked in there to figure out what happened to William Brandt and guess what I found?”

“You hacked where?!” Pepper exclaimed.

“Not the point, Peps.”

“What do you mean not the point?! Tony, you just committed-”

“Yes, yes, I committed a felony. Can we get back to me now? Anyways, guess. What do you think I found?”

Phil mentally rolled his eyes. “Nothing,” he said.

“Exactly! Don’t you find that weird? According to this file on William Brandt in my hands, he’s like crazy good. Like he never misses and he has fucking eidetic memory. He’s like a gold mine agent-wise. And you’re telling me that you have nothing on file about him at all, even when I can find stuff about you? Suspicious, don’t you agree?”

Phil rolled his eyes for real. “I’m sure,” he muttered lowly.

“So I dug into it a little deeper,” Tony continued. He began to pace as he explained his evil genius to the agent. “And what should I find but the files of one Clint Barton? He wasn’t kidding when he told me that that was his real name. That’s like one truth he told me out of his mountains of lies, eh? Except he sort of had to tell me that he was Clint Barton or Pepper would have found out that it was a fake identity and-” At the look that Pepper shot him, he quickly got back on topic. “So anyways, I looked up Clint Barton and guess what I found?”

Phil just stared, obviously becoming ticked at this.

“I found that he’s been in a fucking coma since the Afghanistan incident. It wasn’t because of some agent thing that he didn’t contact me. It wasn’t because he lied and didn’t actually love me. He didn’t contact me because he was a fucking vegetable. And no one thought it would be important to mention that to me?!”

“And why would that be important?” Phil asked drily, half dreading the answer he might receive.

“Because obviously we’re married,” Tony declared. He held up his left hand where a golden wedding band glistened on his ring finger. He smirked at the look of pure horror on Phil’s face. “So why don’t you help me see my hubbie, and we can pretend that this never happened?”  
*  
“When did you two get married?” Pepper asked when Phil was distracted over grieving over the fact that his idol hadn’t been what he had expected. “I don’t remember this at all… And isn’t that Clint’s ring that he wore around his neck?”

“We didn’t,” Tony answered with a grin. “At least not legally. But he did put the ring on my finger. And he did tell me he loves me, and even took a bullet for me. After I find him, we’re going to make it official.”  
*  
Clint stared at Ethan with a sheepish smile. He was currently sitting up on his hospital bed, trying to give Ethan the wide ‘Who me?’ look that he had perfected when he had been younger. “Er… accident?”

“It was an accident when you hit Benji on the back of the head while tossing an orange around. It was an accident when you almost broke Jane’s neck by falling out of an air vent. It is not an accident, Will, when you fire five consecutive explosive arrows at highly trained medical agents with the intent to explode them.”

“At least they’re not dead?”

Ethan sighed and rubbed his temples. “Just what’s going on, Will? Talk to me. I’m worried. We’re all worried.”

There was a small hesitation before Clint also sighed. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“SHIELD. IMF. Will. Everything. I just… I’m getting sick and tired of being an agent. I think I’ll be better off being a circus side show again.”

“What brought this on?”

Clint shook his head. “Nothing. This is stupid.”

He stood up and began to make his way out. Ethan grabbed Clint’s hand and pulled him back down. “Sit down, Clint. Talk to me.”

“I’m not an agent. I’m not agent material. I’m fucked up, Ethan. I can barely keep my shit together, and everything that you guys like about me was all William Brandt. But I can’t be him again. Not after what happened. Fuck. You guys should have never brought me back, because I can’t be that guy. I can’t sit behind a cubical day in and day out, _analyzing_ different missions. I can’t wear a fucking suit and strut around like a good looking office agent. I just can’t.”

“And why not?”

“Because that’s not who I am. That’s William Brandt. He’s… he’s a fucking perfect little angel and I’m just a messed up little creep who’s had too much attention.”

“No, Clint. You’re not. Want to know why? Because you’re him. And he’s you. Stop separating yourself. Because no matter how different Clint Barton and William Brandt are, they’re still both you.”

“When you guys first met Clint, you freaked out,” Clint pointed out.

“We thought you were going to screw up the mission.”

“Which is exactly what I did.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Ethan answered automatically. “We couldn’t locate you in time. You didn’t do anything wrong. You got the target’s attention and-”

“Why the hell do we call him target? He has a name, you know. It’s Tony Stark. And you know what fucking sucks? The fact that I can’t ever see him again because of all of this agent shit. Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe, just maybe, I might actually like the guy? And maybe I actually don’t want to be an agent because this fucking hurts. I hated betraying him because I knew otherwise he would have built weapons for terrorists. I hated the fact that he came back for me despite that. I hated the fact that he’s not allowed here because of stupid protocol. And you know what else? I hate being stuck in this stupid hospital bed without him by my side.”

“Good, because if you tried to kick me out, I was going to rewire the place to repeat after everything I say 24-7 until you finally got sick and tired of hearing my voice that you had to see my face,” Tony Stark declared with a grand flourish as he walked into the room.

There was a slight pause as Ethan just cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. Clint just let out an amused curse and then began laughing. Phil and Pepper peeked into the room behind Tony.

“Holy shit! How the hell did you find me?” Clint asked. “And… Wait. Don’t tell me Phil broke protocol to bring you here?”

“… Mr. Stark was… very persuasive,” was all Phil managed to grit out with a forced pleasant smile on his face.

Pepper motioned for Ethan to get out of the room, which the team leader very confusedly followed. Then the doors were shut and it was just Clint and Tony.

Just like the old times.

“So… I heard you became a superhero,” Clint began awkwardly.

Tony nodded stiffly. “And I heard that you were stuck in here in a coma.”

The two stared at each other, the tension between them building up to a point that felt almost like it would choke them if they didn’t do anything fast. So Tony asked.

“What was the information that you stole from me?”

Clint’s eyes flickered from the closed door and then back to Tony. There was another small pause, but this one felt slightly less awkward. Clint felt more anxious and nervous, wondering what he should say. Should he tell the truth? Was he even allowed to? But this was for Tony. Tony, who had saved his life. Tony, who had whispered soft “I love you”s while they kissed, curled together in the bed. Tony, who was staring earnestly at him, asking for the truth with his eyes.

“Who it was that Obadiah was selling terrorists weapons to.”

“Wait. Are you serious? You spent nearly a year trying to figure that out?”

The archer’s face burned red. “Shut up! You guys have scary good security! We couldn’t exactly hack into Stark Industry and figure it out, could we? So we came up with the next best thing. Seduce you, because it’s your fucking company and you were probably in on the deal as well! And well… I got sloppy, alright? I didn’t want to leave.”

“But you would have had to? If we never got kidnapped in Afghanistan. Would you have had to leave forever?”

Clint nodded slowly. “Yes. Most likely. Then we would do what we do best and erase all evidence of Clint Barton ever having been Tony Stark’s bodyguard.”

Tony closed his eyes. “And it wouldn’t have hurt you?”

“Fuck yes, it would have hurt me! But that’s the only way to keep you safe. Do you know what happened to Ethan’s wife? She was killed.” _Liar, liar, pants on fire. Julia’s not dead. She’s not dead._ Clint shoved the thought aside. “And I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“Then stay by my side and protect me.”

“I’m an agent. I can’t just do as I want.”

“Technically, you’re not an agent. You’re just Clint Barton. William Brandt’s been erased. Disavowed, right? But Clint Barton has nothing to do with that, with that world.”

“Wrong. They disavowed William Brandt and came to rescue me on the pretense of recruiting Clint Barton.”

“Did you agree?”

Clint gulped and didn’t answer the question. He hadn’t agreed out right because the answer had been so obvious. Of course he would continue to be an agent. That was pretty much all he knew how to do now. But he didn’t want to tell Tony that. So he quickly changed the topic.

“What are you asking from me?”

“I’m asking, Clint, for you to stay. Stay here, by my side. And trust me, trust yourself, and trust the people around us to keep us safe.” Tony knelt down before Clint and held up his left hand where the golden ring reflected the overhead light. “Because I’m willing to try if you’re willing to smile.”

“That… That ring was given to me as a way to keep track of me,” Clint admitted softly. “I gave it to you so that they would be able to track you down. So that they can at the very least rescue you.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You agents and your sneaky-ness! Well, that’s just fine. Because I got you a special ring, too.” He pulled out a ring from inside of his jacket. “Sorry, no ring box. I was sort of excited about developing it and all that. But I figured it’d be fine since you sort of put my ring on my finger when I was out cold.”

Grabbing the archer’s hand, he gently slid the ring on Clint’s left ring finger.

“I melted some of the broken parts of the armor that I built in Afghanistan for this. So it’ll be like taking a piece of me with you, no matter where you go. Of course, I may or may not have put a tracker on it as well.”

Tony looked up into Clint’s tri-colored eyes, marveling at the emotions that swam through them. “Clint Barton, would you stay by my side forever and ever until death do us apart?”

The archer covered his mouth to hold back the laughter that threatened to fall. Tony pouted at that. “I am serious here, Legolas! You put a wedding ring on my hand while I was unconscious! I can sue you for unlawful marriage and all that! You should be grateful that I’m actually reciprocating and getting you a ring of your own!”

“You know this isn’t going to work, right? I’m an agent. I’m-”

“Going to disappear for days and weeks without word. I know. And it’s okay, because I would have already hacked into SHIELD for information and updates on your condition. On top of that, the tracker device on your ring will always tell me where you are, if you need me to come and pick you up real quick.”

“… SHIELD?”

“Your company name. It’s too fucking long. You guys need to shorten it.”

“So SHIELD, huh?”

“It has all the important letters.”

Clint laughed this time. “You’re crazy, Tony!”

“So do you accept?”

The archer hesitated a little. “But… what if you don’t want me around anymore?”

“Not going to happen,” Tony declared. “You might get sick and tired of me, but I’m not going to let you leave. Not again. Fuck. Clint, I saw Yinsen die in the caves. He helped me out, you know? He made sure that I stayed alive, made sure that I had a way of getting out. And I let him die. I should have had everything ready to go beforehand. I should have helped him out. But the fact of the matter is that I let him down, and now he’s in heaven with his family. I don’t want to lose you the same way.”

“It’s likely that I’ll die during a mission.”

“You’re not allowed. You have to come back from every single mission, got it? And if you ever get into another sticky situation, then I’m going to barge in and save you. Because I’m a superhero, now.”

“Only you can take a dire situation and turn it around with a cheesy joke.”

“So stay.”

Clint thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.  
*  
Nick Fury resisted the urge to smack his head against the wall. Who the fuck had the bright idea of letting Stark and Barton get married? Because having sex in the break room of SHIELD where anyone could walk in should not be allowed, married or not.

“Gentlemen,” he said between gritted teeth.

Tony just beamed proudly and Clint just grinned.

Fury sighed. “I was going to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative, but it appears that you guys aren’t responsible enough for it.”

He knew he had their attention, but he wasn’t sure how else he was going to go through with this. Oh well, once they were both part of the Avengers, at least he could pass the responsibilities to Phil. Good thing his hero-worship of Brandt stopped when Clint permanently decided to become a pain in the ass. Granted, the same worship had been transferred to a slightly worrisome obsession over Captain America. Well, it wasn’t like they were going to find the said soldier, so Fury figured everything would be alright.

 

Three months later, Captain America was discovered frozen in the artic.

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After hearing about both the Avengers Initiative and the marriage between Stark and Barton, Natasha Romanoff did the one thing that she was very well known for. She volunteered to do the performance evaluation to decide whether Tony Stark would really be a good match both for the program and for her friend/protector. 
> 
> What happened while she was undercover, however, is a story for a different time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Till Death Do Us Apart [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4378850) by [litrapod (litra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litrapod)




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